TITLE:
How does the Behaviour of Dairy Cows during Recording Affect an Image Processing Based Calculation of the Udder Depth?
AUTHORS:
Jennifer Salau, Jan Henning Haas, Wolfgang Junge, Georg Thaller
KEYWORDS:
Dairy Cow, Sensor Data, Image Processing, Animal Temperament, Measurement Precision
JOURNAL NAME:
Agricultural Sciences,
Vol.9 No.1,
January
17,
2018
ABSTRACT: Precision Livestock Farming studies are based on data that was measured from animals via technical devices. In the means of automation, it is usually not accounted for the animals’ reaction towards the devices or individual animal behaviour during the gathering of sensor data. In this study, 14 Holstein-Friesian cows were recorded with a 2D video camera while walking through a scanning passage comprising six Microsoft Kinect 3D cameras. Elementary behavioural traits like how long the cows avoided the passage, the time they needed to walk through or the number of times they stopped walking were assessed from the video footage and analysed with respect to the target variable “udder depth” that was calculated from the recorded 3D data using an automated procedure. Ten repeated passages were recorded of each cow. During the repetitions, the cows adjusted individually (p